Team

Samuel BelzbergChairman and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Belzberg has extensive international experience in real estate and finance with a distinguished track record. In 1962, City Savings and Trust received a Charter from the Alberta Government to set up a provincial trust company. This evolved into First City Financial, which Mr. Belzberg built into a $7 billion financial services organization with offices across North America and Europe. First City was involved in many large investment transactions including Bache Securities before it was sold to Prudential, Gulf Oil, Armstrong World (a large building supply company) and Scovill (a manufacturing company which included Yale Locks, Hamilton Beach, NuTone and many other brand-name products).

During the 1990s, Mr. Belzberg founded Balfour Holdings Ltd. (“Balfour”), a real estate company which, at its peak, operated over 26 projects spreading through the United States. Balfour’s mandate was to profit from the dislocations in value in the United States due to the Savings and Loan crisis. Balfour subdivided and serviced its purchased lands and sold the lots to National Builders. In 1997, Balfour was sold to Blackstone, a large U.S. private equity group and generated realized returns in excess of 20% per annum. During the 1990′s, Mr. Belzberg was an active acquirer of distressed property in Alberta where values had dramatically declined due to the softness in the oil industry. These properties were subsequently divested when the market recovered. In 1992, Mr. Belzberg started a private real estate and equity investments company, which is now called Gibralt Capital Corporation.

Mr. Belzberg serves on various Board of Directors and is involved with numerous charities. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1989 from the Governor General, and also in 1989 he received an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. In 1992, he received the Governor General of Canada Award. In 2002, Mr. Belzberg was promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada.

Wayne JacobsPresident

Mr. Jacobs has extensive experience in both Real Estate and the Capital markets. Prior to joining Gibralt he spent the past 23 years with Allied Properties REIT and was instrumental in building it into one of Canada’s top performing and preeminent Real Estate Investment Trusts. Prior to joining Allied he was with CBRE, a leading international Real Estate Brokerage Firm. Prior to that Wayne worked at both Lehman Brothers and Oppenheimer based in New York City.

Robert WatsonExecutive Vice President

Mr. Watson spent 40 years as a corporate commercial lawyer both domestically and internationally and is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. He has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations, financing activities, partnership and joint venture arrangements and competition matters. He has extensive experience in real estate syndication activities involving residential, commercial and retail properties. He has served on the Board of a public corporation, and on corporate governance, audit, environment and human resources committees. Prior to joining Gibralt Capital, Mr. Watson was previously one of the founding partners at the law firm of Watson Goepel based in Vancouver, B.C.

Ryan ChanChief Financial Officer

Mr. Chan has over 15 years of experience in real estate development, construction and operations. He has extensive experience in structuring acquisitions and capitalizations in complicated or opportunistic situations in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Chan has been managing the real estate investment portfolio for Gibralt since 2005 and he is also responsible for the corporate finance, taxation and, cash management. Previously, he held increasingly senior roles for real estate developers, including Anthem Properties and Parklane Homes. Mr. Chan received a Bachelor of Science (Honors) from State University of New York and is a Certified General Accountant.